


a cold and lonely, lovely work of art

by archivisms



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: (and by that i mean spock has long hair), Angst, Autism, Autistic Spock (Star Trek), Gen, Isolation, a far too gratuitous application of vulcan grammar, neurodivergence, takes some points from collision course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 00:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18953770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archivisms/pseuds/archivisms
Summary: Spock must adjust to life in the Starfleet dormitories.Earth is colder than Vulcan.





	a cold and lonely, lovely work of art

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from mona lisa by nat king cole bc. that's a big spock song
> 
> this fic only exist because i got cold at 3:00 am and wanted to project.
> 
> is it weird that i hate it when allistic people write spock as autistic but love it when people who are actually autistic do? i think not!!
> 
> (also, there's a glossary of vulcan words at the end)

It is Spock’s first night in the Academy dorms.

The room temperature is optimal. For humans. But Spock is not human, and therefore, he is cold. Even if he were human, Spock thinks that he would still be cold, too used to the heat of Vulcan to sleep comfortably in the cool nights of San Francisco.

He shivers under four blankets, and a single sheet. 

One fleece blanket, too short to adequately cover his whole body.

One hand-me-down from his now-deceased human grandmother, silky-soft and stuffed with down feathers.

One duvet, thick and heavy. The pressure of the blanket is soothing to Spock, besides the warmth it provides.

One quilt, orange and white. A gift from his mother. Upon gifting it to him, She told him that the pattern upon it made her think of stars. He, admittedly, did not quite see the resemblance.

His long braid lays on the pillow behind him. Every night before he sleeps, Spock carefully brushes it, taking his time with each stroke to untangle any snarls that had developed throughout the day. Sometimes, he missed his mother’s gentle hands, never tugging too hard at his hair. As she brushed, she would speak softly with him in Basic. He already had some level of fluency, all Vulcans did, but hearing her, speaking with her, helped him learn faster, and develop his accent to something far more ‘human.’ 

It was illogical, the soft pang of longing in his chest that he felt when he brushed his hair alone.

Despite the cold, Spock’s fingers were far too warm. It was uncomfortable, the way heat seemed to pool in the very tips, hot with blood. 

Spock removed his hands from under the covers and placed them atop the blanket. It did not help.

He was not sure what his reception would be like at the academy. The San Francisco Starfleet Academy was known for its high level of non-human students. However, Spock was the only Vulcan attending, even if there was a Vulcan on staff. Osavensu V’Para was well-known within academic Vulcan circles. Her family, upon first contact, had emigrated to Earth in order to establish an understanding of human culture and foster good relations with the newly warp-capable, if overly emotional, humans. She was well-established and well-respected. This was to be expected. However, Spock was not. Despite the fact that he had been accepted to the VSA, he had declined to attend. What sort of reputation would that foster, the fact that he had chosen to study on Earth, with Starfleet, rather than with his people at Shi’Oren t’Ek’Tallar T’Khasi? Spock would rather stay apart from the rest of his classmates than deal with their criticisms of him, be it surface-level comments on his ‘cold’ attitude, or more stinging gossip about why he rejected the VSA’s offer. 

Spock did not truly know know if he would be ridiculed by his human peers for his perceived lack of emotions, as he was for his excess of them by his vulcan peers. He had never truly known how to properly integrate with those his age. He did not have ‘friends’ on Vulcan, and based on prior experience, would likely have none on Earth. Spock found that this was acceptable. 

Friends would be a distraction from his studies, especially temperamental non-vulcans who would request emotional availability from him that he was not prepared to give. 

His mother, whenever he had expressed this to her, had smiled sadly and stroked his hair gently, the light, familial psychic contact enough to give Spock an impression of the grief she felt at what she perceived as his loneliness.

Spock was fine.

He was not lonely.

Logically, he could not be lonely. He had never been close enough with anyone outside his family to miss or crave their presence, therefore it was impossible for him to be lonely. He was simply alone, you could not miss something you had never had.

Spock sat up, pushing himself onto his elbows. The tight feeling in his chest had returned. There was a very small likelihood that he would be able return to sleep.

He swung his legs off the side of his bed, feet touching down gently on the cool floor of the dormitory room. Folding the blanket aside gently, Spock stood, and began to make his way to the small dorm kitchen.

His footsteps were near-silent, muffled by thick socks. He stared at the small selection of teas his mother had given him before he’d left for Earth. Some were Vulcan, like the box of theris-masu, though most were earthen, as Vulcan’s climate was considered too hot for tea to be a common beverage. Spock placed the box of chamomile tea next to the electric teakettle. 

Turning in the faucet of the small sink, Spock held the pot under the stream of water until it was approximately full enough with water to fill a mug. He placed the teakettle back on its stand and turned it on.

He opened a cabinet and removed a mug, placing it gently on the counter. It clinked as he set it down. The mug bore the Starfleet logo.

Now it was time to wait for the water to boil. 

Spock stood there, in his dark and quiet dorm, lit only by the electric light on the teakettle that told him it was on. He didn’t bother with turning the lights on, able to see well enough in the dark, far better than a human, due to the high number of rod cells within his retinas, and the fact that he had a tapetum lucidum, while humans did not. Of course, he would logically have better eyesight at night than a human would, being a Vulcan. Vulcans were, by descent, a crepuscular species, adapted to the twilight hours, to dawn and dusk, as living on a hot desert planet made one adapt their circadian rhythms to avoid the heat, which might be described as punishing.

The cold on Earth seemed equally as punishing.

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary of Vulcan Words:  
> Osavensu - Honored teacher  
> Shi'Oren t'Ek'Tallar T'Khasi - Vulcan Science Academy  
> theris-masu - a kind of vulcan tea
> 
> come check me out on tumblr, i'm @flash-and-substance


End file.
